Google: EU Antitrust Fine is "Inappropriate"

[engine]

You'll all recall the EU statement of objections (see link below) and here's the latest reply from Google which Reuters managed to see.

Google is saying it's offering a free search service, and that there's "no trading relationship" between it and it's search users, hence the statement from Google that a fine, potentially as much as $.6.6 billion, would be "inappropriate."

"Imposing a fine in the present case would be inappropriate. The novelty of the statement of objections' theory, the selection of the case for commitment negotiation and Google's good faith participating in these negotiations militate against the imposition of a fine," the document said.

Google said it should not be charged with abusing its dominance in Europe as it provided a free search service.

"The statement of objections fails to take proper account of the fact that search is provided for free. A finding of abuse of dominance requires a 'trading relationship' as confirmed by consistent case law. No trading relationship exists between Google and its users." Google: EU Antitrust Fine is "Inappropriate" [uk.reuters.com]

Google Challenges the European Commission's Statement of Objections [webmasterworld.com]

[masterjoe]

Update: Since the zombie traffic thread has closed and we are not allowed to discuss actions against Google, I set up a quick forum to continue. I have PM'd users who have been active in the thread. [magichatseo.com...]

[raseone]

NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT ACTION AGAINS GOOGLE!? NOT ALLOWED BY WHO? WHY?

I WANT TO TALK ABOUT ACTION AGAINST GOOGLE. BOB, WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

Even in your upstanding forum here I have a hard time putting up with the game playing and #*$! tactics of those who swing from google's nutsack as if they were undercover public relations agents... Throwing hollow jargon & buzzwords around trying to make angry webmasters look or feel stupid or uniformed.

Some of the replies to the complaints, questions, assertions and stories of publishers, webmasters, business owners etc... are often so incredibly disjointed from the actual complaint or statement that they just stink of a purposeful attempt at distraction and changing of the subject.

Everyones case is different. My particular case has left me heavily outranked by pirate copies of my own material since mid 2011. I had put over 15 years into my business & into the content that I created only to see google forsake me & promote (with search) and fund (with adsense) an endless stream of pirates, thieves & imitators. My registered trademarks & copyrights are useless. DMCA orders are useless, my lawsuit useless, my complaints to the FBI useless... In my case Google has proven to be above the law.

I have seen my own sites as well as every other legitimate source of my content continuously outranked by every imaginable type of nonsense.

For a full year the #1 result when searching Google for my trademark was an broken pirate page with no content except for an error message stating that the content had been removed.

For another year the #1 result was a poorly built pirate site from Pakistan that had no text content, no supporting content of any kind, just a crappy little image & a download link to the pirate content.

The current results have al of the legitimate sources outranked by several pirate websites.... all of which have been reported multiple times to Google & Adsense in the past.

Throughout all of the time since have panda and penguin I have also been outranked by the image results & youtube results when searching for my own trademarks & those results lead almost entirely to piracy of my content & many of those results have been reported many times.

I have survived but it is fair to say I have lost everything that I ever built. I've lost the value in everything that I ever made. I have wasted years of my life & the entirely of my savings trying everything that Google insists I need to do to save my sites & my content & my business.

To hell with a fine from the government! I want restitution! I want my lost income & cost. I want damages! I want a class action lawsuit from private entities, not the government.

[fathom]

Even in your upstanding forum here I have a hard time putting up with the game playing and #*$! tactics of those who swing from google's nutsack as if they were undercover public relations agents... Throwing hollow jargon & buzzwords around trying to make angry webmasters look or feel stupid or uniformed.

Unfortunately, you sound like you are in the USA and the FTC (your governing body) settled with Google almost 3 years ago [ftc.gov...] and against your better judgment/argry disposition for being penalized.

You can ceratinly file a lawsuit.

[raseone]

@fathom

As I said in the above post, I have filed a lawsuit. My lawyer is no sucker either. He actually might be the most prominent is this particular field. The lawsuit was limited to one particular case of Google promoted, Google sponsored piracy. Our efforts met with an extremely aggressive response from Google which made it quite clear that they would break my bank & try to destroy my lawyers business if we continued.

The FTC and/or government can settle all they want. I've settled nothing. Even given safe harbor & everything else Google hides behind I'm positive that existing laws are being broken willfully in my case. Alone I simply lack the resources to pursue the matter & my own potential damages if I won, though significant are inadequate to go up against them.

I gave up on my sites a long time ago. For me this is no longer about my sites. It is about my content, my property, my rights. I've built many successful sites both before & after panda/penguin. Certain properties, businesses, sites, people are simply not allowed to flourish while others are. The reasons are uncertain. The methods are unclear. Most likely its all very simple. Google is monetizing what was once free organic reach & they wont admit it. Thats my theory.

"Penalized" you say? For what? For existing? For making something? For publishing? For having done well in the past? For being a business? For what?

Also "fathom". I find the portion of my post which you chose to quote perfect for you since it seems you are one of those folks who jump up to defend Google. You want to talk about an "angry disposition" as if my anger is the result of a personality defect rather than a result of the situation. There are some things that people need to be angry about & this is one of them.

This is not my first rodeo & I've learned over time not to let the unshakably pro-google crown use your pseudo-scientic guess work & victim-blaming personal attacks to distract from the actual issues.

Distract, deflect, attack the weak points, ignore the strong, go after the person instead of the issue, change the subject... This is why the effected wind up being called the "tin-foil-hat crowd" or "conspiracy nuts".

Even when an entire continent has stood up to say something is very wrong there are still those here who will insist that all the victims are just crazy cry babies.

PS. anyone with almost 4,000 posts in this forum is obviously not busy running any real business.

[fathom]

[webmasterworld.com...]
You wrote your posts not me.
I don't defend Google. I'm just being realistic.

PS. Google broke me 4 times before they created PANDA & PENGUIN and those were very hard lessons to learn. But I did learn and learned very well and now instead of being a Couch Potatoe you can call me a Post Potatoe!

[raseone]

Well... At least you have a sense of humor. Pre-panda google was not perfect either. I struggled with some nonsensical rankings back then too. Nothing like the current situation though. Back then you could usually credit the bad rankings to agressive seo. Now its just an invisible barrier that no one can really identify and its almost universal and apparently insurmountable.

[Simon_H]

@raseone WebmasterWorld is a forum for professional discussion. People ask specific questions and others try to answer those questions. I'm sure we all sympathise with your dilemma, but posting enormous albeit eloquent rants about Google is unconstructive, even if it makes you feel better. Attacking people and calling them Google sympathisers for being irked at your hijacking of multiple threads is poor show.

In summary, your issue seems to be that your website publishes your IP (images, fonts) but Google is ranking sites that have pirated this content higher than you, resulting in lost revenue. A few things to consider:

1) There appears to be no financial benefit to Google in allowing this; it's simply how their algo works. This is a very different complaint to those that allege Google is manipulating results to drive more paid traffic.
2) Following on from above, their algo has presumably determined that (a) your site contains original content but (b) your site is very low quality (Panda / Penguin). Unfortunately for you, (b) has outweighed (a).
3) Contrary to popular belief, Google cannot simply remove any content/sites that it determines are engaged in copying or scraping. Retailers re-use images from manufacturers. Marketplaces re-use images and descriptions from retailers and often achieve this through scraping with permission.
4) There will always be pirates stealing your artwork, or big companies stealing your designs or affiliates stealing your sales or competitors doing something similar for cheaper. Rather then focusing all your efforts on getting these people shut down, it might be a better approach to try to ensure that your offering is better than the rest and anything else is written off as collateral damage.

If you want to try to get your website sorted out so that Google will rank you above the pirates, then maybe people here can help. Post some proper details of why you think your site has been hit by Panda or Penguin and then we can have some constructive discussion. (Best to do this on a different thread). If you'd rather not because you think that the whole thing is fixed or that you shouldn't have to comply with Google's guidelines for it to rank you highly or that anything copied/scraped should be automatically de-ranked without your site having to be high quality, then good luck with that. But I think you'd have more chance of success with working on your site than suing Google.

[raseone]

@Simon H

Thank you. Yes, long winded. Can't argue with that.

The extensive details of my situation have been posted here & elsewhere many times before. There is nothing left to discuss on a technical or strategy level. It has been years now & every single suggestion from experts & laymen of all levels has failed to produce even the slightest results. Multi-site, multi-strategy, years long experiments across multiple industries have failed to produce anything close to an answer as to the source of the difficulty or a way through it.

I am (and have been for years) willing to except that Google now sees some of my sites as low quality even though they grew to #1 rankings naturally over the course of many years. Arguing about how the sites that outrank me are far worse than my own has always been pointless & I have always been attacked no matter what I say... None of this really matters.

As I have said MANY times, it's not just my sites. It's EVERY legitimate source of my content. Outranked without exception by piracy. Sites that are beyond repute outranked by crap.

Call me rude or disgruntled if you want but your reply is rude & condescending in its own way, full of incorrect assumptions & assertions, offers nothing new, nothing that has not been tried before, nothing thats not obvious to anyone with half a brain. Thats why I and many like me always seem so angry or irritated. It's frustrating to keep having the same remedial advice thrown in your face for years as if you're just doing it wrong or don't get it.

Those of you who do this are doing a disservice to the world in helping to maintain the illusion that nothing shady is happening.

Going after pirates & google is a last resort. I never enjoyed it, never wanted to do it in the first place & did as little of it as I could possibly justify. I resent the accusation that I spend all my time trying to get others shut down. Just another cheap shot. I have no desire to be in the lawsuit business. I only want fair treatment.

You might think you can help me but you probably can't. You might think you know something I don't about this... unlikely. You might think your expert opinion contains the answers but so does the other expert giving the opposite advice. I am content to stick with my own expert opinion.

If you are not experiencing it then you'll have a hard time understanding it.

PS. My posts are on topic & its a bit petty to say I'm "hijacking" the thread. I have not named my sites or asked for your help. I am sharing my opinion and experience like everyone else. I will decide how I spend my own time. I am doing what seems right to me.

[fathom]

Here you should be sharing your opinions on the EU, the EC Antitrust Claims they suggest they have against Google. You should be extremely interested in this outcome.

If you toss out all the rhertoric, the budget of this class action lawsuit with 28 countries on one side pitting their prowess against the same foe as you, but they have tax payers money to toss around. That still may not make a difference.

You did hijack this thread for your own personal agenda.

[raseone]

How do you figure that The EU case is any different from the same trouble in the U.S. or worldwide. The only difference is that Google might actually be held to account in that case.

Obviously my first-hand experience helps to prove the futility of an individual or small business trying to protect itself from Google. Obviously the EU case helps to prove that the problem is real. If you can't see the connection & this seems off topic to you I don't know what to tell you. Watching how easily Google baffled and bamboozled the U.S. senate was comedy. Watching how easily they completely destroyed my own lawyer was less funny.

Expressing my thoughts & experience on how we continue to have the same trouble in the U.S. equals "hijacking the thread for my own personal agenda"? Sharing a bit about what I went through when raising an actual lawsuit directly with Google about the EXACT SAME ISSUE = "hijacking the thread"?

This is a DISCUSSION forum. I'm discussing. The only experience & opinion & am qualified to share is my own. I read, I replied... Wether or not you understand why, my experience might be important or interesting to some people. I have nothing to gain personally from posting here. I don't need to "feel better". I feel fine.

I'll bow out though since you seem to find first hand experience disruptive to your narrative.

[Simon_H]

@raseone Again, I sympathise, but you're not discussing. You're venting. You're not asking any questions and you're not answering any. You dismiss anyone's advice as you say that nothing can be done. Hence, you shouldn't be posting.

As I said, I've read your posts. You've indeed written a lot, but managed to say nothing about the technicalities of your website. How is it structured? Do you have one of your images per page? If so, what additional text if any do you have on the page? Is the text thin or duplicated across multiple pages? Are you confident pages are correctly canonicalised? How does the ads/Adsense side of things work and are any ads clearly differentiated from other content? And so on. If you don't want to answer, then, yes, best to bow out.

[raseone]

@simon

I'm not here looking for help. This is not a tech support thread. I'm not interested in any continued analysis of any of my sites from the peanut gallery. My posts here have been consistently about the behavior of the google search engine which is what the EU case is about.

The EU case is not about "thin content" or no-follow tags. Its not about canonical links or duplicate content, load times, long-tail keywords, recursive, heuristic algorithms or any other excuses or ghosts that Google would have us all chase. My sites are fine. They always were fine. There's nothing wrong with the sites of most of the legitimate publishers who've been effected by this Google problem. Some are even still treated ok.

Like I've said MANY MANY MANY times here now, its no longer about just my sites. Its about any and all legitimate instances of my content ON ANY SITE being outranked by piracy & broken nonsense. It's about the same thing happening to my family, my friends, my clients, my competitors, those in my industry & every industry... not to mention all the items & information that I search for on Google as a consumer. Its about trust & abuse of trust.

I'm done hacking through millions of individual subjective technical & strategic issues with a bunch of random people no more experienced or knowledgeable than myself. I spent years doing that already.

I have no interest in rehashing nearly 5 years of struggles across dozens of sites as if one more technical tweak might make some difference.

Do you think the EU pursues their case because they think every website in Europe suddenly became substandard? Do you think they believe it ok to consistently feature piracy over legitimate authors & distributors? You think the EU still believes that this is anything other than a Google problem.

I don't need any further advice on how to build or manage my sites. I don't have any trouble dealing with my competition. Success in building & managing my sites is what got me to the top of search in the first place. Dealing with my competition is what kept me there. I am not losing to my competition. I'm losing to Google.

[fathom]

You're not losing to Google, your own arrogance caused you to believe you could game the search engine and get away with it... forever!

A smart BLACKHATTER would do what they must to earn the budget to wean themselves off what eventually plagued them.

You feel jilted because of your own complacency.

Hard lesson to learn ... Course some have no desire to learn... Right?

[WebEnthusiast]

Hello,

In my opinion the first post of raseone bring much information to the topic about google. How google reacted on decisions made by raseone etc.

I cannot say same about posts wrote by fathom & Simon_H, which are fully offtopic and should never come, he no need your help with his website nor any help from you at all. He just wrote his own case with google.

I had a feeling I have to write this post as I see this forum becomes more and more like Google Webmaster forum, hate hate hate and I do not mean here posts by raseone.

[Simon_H]

An artist goes into a bar. "I cannot BELIEVE how evil Google is," he says to the bartender.
The bartender is confused. "Ok, but what would you like to order?" he asks the artist.
The artist just repeats "I cannot BELIEVE how evil Google is."
"That's all very well, but what you like to order?" the bartender asks.
"I don't want to order anything", the artist says. "I cannot BELIEVE how evil Google is."
"You do know this is a bar, don't you? Now, for the last time, what would you like to order?" asks the bartender, now very aggravated.
"I cannot BELIEVE how evil Google is." says the artist.

[raseone]

@fathom - I have never been anything resembling a "blackhatter". I've never used any "SEO" tactics other than to improve & expand my actual site & content. Never used an seo company, never did any link building.... lie and assume all you want.

I'm just a publisher, Just a content owner, just a small business owner... I've never made the slightest attempt to "game a search engine" in my life or in my 20 years in business. I am not arrogant. You are confused & don't seem to understand what I am saying. You contribute nothing useful. You are completely full of #*$!.

@Simon H - I am much more surprised at the uselessness of your responses. You have more votes than you have posts. You seem knowledgeable. Its you who is off topic here. You insist I should be asking you for tech support or advice on my site. That is not the nature or topic of this thread.

Its Google that GAMING THE SYSTEM. They abuse the relationship with people like me by profiting from my creations while cutting me out of the equation. Putting me in a position where THE ONLY WAY I can have legitimate sources of my content outrank the pirates is by BUYING ADS. They DO NOT OBEY MY DMCA ORDERS. THEY PROMOTE & PAY THE PIRATES. THEY RANK BROKEN, EMPTY & ILLEGAL PAGES OVER PERFECTLY GOOD LEGITIMATE CONTENT.

The problem with your arguments is that there is only one truth & one reality and you are trying to disprove it. The best you can do is to create the illusion of right. You can never actually be right. Come after me as a person if you want. I can take it. I do understand that you need me to be a dishonest, #*$! criminal "blackhatter" in order to make your theory work.

[fathom]

PANDA deals with copied, affiliated, auto-generated, or thin content.

i've never seen a website with none of these ... being PANDAized.

[superclown2]

Its Google that GAMING THE SYSTEM

Sure. But that's the way it is and we either accept it and see how to turn it to our advantage or go into a different business. I'll stay in this one, it certainly beats working for a living.

Some of us are doing OK thanks. I am, mainly because of good advice I've received through this forum over the last decade or so. A lot of people have helped me, possibly because I've never ranted at anyone. There's a message there, somewhere.

[raseone]

I don't care what animal you want to name it after.

You want arrogance? Heres some...

My content is original. For many years it was not only original but literally exclusive to my own sites. For the most part I authored it myself. I'm actually credited by others in my field & magazines on the subject with starting the entire genre & credited by Yale University as leading it.... but keep reaching you've almost won the day for Google. Maybe after you get the last word on me they'll mail you a cookie.

[raseone]

@superclown2

What you say would make sense if the quality of the pirate sites or the quality of the pirate content was actually better in any conceivable way but it simply isn't. It would make sense if there were actually some way that one could turn it in their favor without being a thieving, dishonest abuser of other peoples work but there isn't.

I'm glad you've found good advice here, I'm glad it helped, I'm glad you're doing well. Because one person can float does not mean that no one has ever been drowned.

Perhaps your site, your business, your industry or genre is untouched or maybe even helped. That means nothing... Sorta like how you didn't get shot by the cops but that means nothing to the dead guy. Sorta like how you don't have cancer but some people do. Life is unfair, business are cruel... but there are limits to the unfairness that people will endure & limits to the amount of cruelty they will tolerate from a business.

I am already diversified enough that I to "do ok". That also means nothing. The fact that you didn't die when someone punched you in the face means nothing. The fact that some other guy didn't get punched in the face means nothing.

So far none of you can come up with anything other than "Its not happening", "you deserve it" or "get over it"

No.

Reductio ad absurdum.

[fathom]

I can't dispute what you claim I can only suggest "all original and only original content doesn't fall victim to PANDA".

[raseone]

I totally agree that such content is not supposed to fall victim to panda. But apparently, based on the dates of various hits to various sites, it does fall victim fairly often. This is one of the reasons why a lot of people don't believe what Google claims about all the disruption in their serps. Sites that should not have been hit hit by Panda or Penguin either WERE hit or they were hit by something else deployed at basically the same exact times.

None of this really explains why recovery is impossible or why legitimate content loses to piracy and nonsense when published on irreputable sites.

Legitimate aggregators of free content will not generally buy many Adwords ads. To do so would make no sense. By design Adwords ads cost more than one can make with Adsense. Pirates are also a type of aggregator and also mainly monetized by Adsense. Both of these groups are dependent on free, organic, search traffic. Both are Good for Adsense earnings for Google. It makes basic mathematical sense for Google to favor both of these groups in order to increase their Adsense earnings.

Content owners, business owners, publishers of their own original, unique content ARE likely to buy Adwords ads and are much less likely to be monetized in full or in part by Adsense or to be making Google any money with Adsense. Google's best hope to make money from those folks is to sell them Adwords ads to replace the organic traffic they can't get anymore. It makes basic mathematical sense for Google limit the organic reach of those who might buy ads.

Many people with any dog in the fight have decided that this is the case & moved on with their lives. Some people are un-recoverably & irreparably damaged by this unfair practice & abuse of dominance. When piracy comes into play it becomes less of a simple abuse & more of a straight-up crime.

The EU case deals with "Google Shopping" results. Somewhat of a different issue than other "organic" results. Victory by the EU over Google will not relieve any of the pressure on regular websites unless Google shopping results were their main problem. This is usually not the case. In my own case even the Google shopping results for my content are outranked by piracy, image search piracy, youtube piracy, broken pages, pages that don't have content that was searched for & numerous other forms of nonsense. Frankly my real competitors are nowhere to be seen in the serps I care about. Its all just crap. Crap that in my opinion is elevated for the specific purpose of trying to squeeze Awords money out of the purveyors of non-crap.

The Google serps are nonsensical & bizarre & really only make any sense if you look at them from the perspective that Google is doing it to increase their revenue. Every publicly traded company has he same disease. They need to grow eternally to please their stockholders. Big is never big enough. People do not invest in stocks so that their money can stand still.

I'm sure Google would love to see a world where having your own site was futile & everyone just published their content directly into the Google.

[raseone]

Did I make a type-o or did one of you sweethearts change "unless" to "if" in the second to the last paragraph of my last post? My tinfoil hat must have a hole in it.

... In any case...

An artist walks into a town hall meeting about Google business practices and how the neighboring town is defending itself.

The bartender from the joint next door staggers in with a 12-pack under his arm. "You need a drink!" He says to the artist. "This is a drinking party" he says.

"You know you're not in you bar right?" Replies the artist.

[superclown2]

What you say would make sense if the quality of the pirate sites or the quality of the pirate content was actually better in any conceivable way but it simply isn't

I've faced pirate sites for 15 years. I was in this business when to get a site listed in Yahoo we had to pay 290 US dollars just to get it looked at with no guarantee of inclusion. When there were literally thousands of sites spamming their way up the SERPs in every niche. When we had to bribe editors of certain directories to get listed. But this is a business and business is often a case of dog eat dog.

How does the small grocer feel when Tesco opens a superstore on his doorstep then slashes prices until he's driven out of business? A newspaper proprietor when everyone gets their news online? A taxi driver who's spent 20 years learning the business who sees Uber destroy his livelihood? It's tough but that's when the tough get going. Criticising them for a lack of sympathy for your own problems won't help you one iota.

cacoethes scribendi

[raseone]

Nice latin, is that a warning or a threat?

15 years is pretty good. I'm at about 21. While I appreciate the little lesson in business & the reminder that things change over time...I am not a small grocer being priced out of the market by a big one. More like a small grocer having his entrance blocked by a Google truck loaded with bootleg grocery thieves selling groceries that they stole from my store & giving Google a cut of the profits.

People "Spamming their way up the search" has nothing to do with me. The whole point of these algorithm changes was supposed to be to deal with the web spam. You want to paint this as some technological advancement thats leaving some people behind. Thats nonsense. Cheating & stealing is not new technology, not a new idea. Its a dirty, old trick.

By the way... what uber does to taxis is really not cool, what walmart does to small business and consumers is really not cool... Much like what Google is doing to small business, content owners, consumers etc. is really not cool. The problem in all 3 of those cases is really the same... The governments that regulate this stuff are waaaaay slower to understand and react than the corporations or for that matter the consumers.

We have this thing that we capitalist pigs refer to as "the free market". Its a pretty handy, sorta self regulating system of supply and demand. In their "natural form" both search engines & the internet itself tend to be subject to and governed largely by this "free market". Google is "disrupting" the free market by thwarting the basic logic & rules that allow it to work. That is a problem. It's not good for anyone but Google.

So... Its clear that most of you think that I (and everyone) should just get over it and move on. Move on to what? To where? Why? How about I come to your house, throw you out in the cold & tell you to get over it & find a new house.

I'm not content to let the attempts at distraction & avoidance stand. I had left this issue alone for years until I wandered into this forum and got a little reminder of what people are facing & what its doing to them & what it did to me... Until I was reminded what it looks like when when people are being abused and no one will listen, no one will help. When they are attacked for speaking out & blamed for their own abuse.

First world problems... Yes, but in the first world our income & our opportunity are our survival. This is how we eat, how we provide for our children.

This Google problem is not a myth, its not an opinion, its not a conspiracy theory.....

But then again maybe you're right maybe Google is not self interested. Maybe they haven't gone a few steps to far in the quest for a buck. God knows if theres anyone we can trust its giant corporations.

[fathom]

So you can't handle your priracy problem because it is too expensive for you thus this must be a Google problem because they earn a lot more, not from you but from everyone else.

For 1 page ($50) of text copy, it cost me $55 to register it with the Copyright Office, $15K for a retainer for a Copyright Specialist, even before any pirate. Then $380/hour to write everything from demand notices, research for legal briefs, legal presentations (or about another $10K) before filing a lawsuit.

Only then can I actually file a lawsuit with a court, then need to post a bond (commonly $10K to $200K) to protect the alleged infringer rights to earn income for on average 2-year battle, in the event I lose the court action. The courts prefer to protect the status quo.

It does cost a great deal but many times you can settle out of court... but it's your loss not to try and while you can certainly blame Google for your lot in life but "sticks & stones may break my bones but names with never hurt me," comes to mind. This is why pirates are pirates because many believe it cost too much to take action, and according to you they are right.

You don't sound like you have ever even tried to settle out of court. Clearly when you have an issuance number it is rather cheap to get pirates to cough up settlement fees before getting nailed with legal expenses and statutory damages.

[glakes]

So you can't handle your priracy problem because it is too expensive for you thus this must be a Google problem because they earn a lot more, not from you but from everyone else.

This is why pirates are pirates because many believe it cost too much to take action, and according to you they are right.

He is right and you are wrong, at least in the context of what I've had to deal with in the past. Scraped content, word for word including all images and business logos, posted on blogspot blogs by the dozens daily. Though it did not cost a dime to get those taken down, it wasted my time and a lot of it. If I was able to be reimbursed for my billable labor, Google would owe me six figures - as they indexed the stolen content and hosting it too.

If Google is going to operate a service that indexes copyrighted materials, then they should be responsible to display that content or organize it in a way that respects law. They can, but they just don't want to. If that's the case, then they should have to pay for breaching law and violating the rights of copyright holders.

When it's word for word scraped content, including images and logos that load from the victims site, there is no excuse for Google to not pony up some money if they are going to display those scraper sites in their search results which are surrounded by ads. But the DMCA places this burden on the individual when Google has the technological ability to exclude stolen content from their index. And to publicly state that there must be other problems (panda, penguin, etc.) when the victim's site ranks below the stolen content is a straight out display of malice.

Setting all fanboy and tinfoil hat stuff aside, all businesses must conduct business in a responsible way. That sucks for some industries as they must heavily invest in equipment to meet environmental regulations, purchase insurance to protect them against product liability, etc. I think many of us just want Google to invest some of its mass wealth in managing their index in a responsible manner. Anything less and Google is just another bottom feeder business trying to skirt their responsibilities.

[fathom]

He is right and you are wrong, at least in the context of what I've had to deal with in the past. Scraped content, word for word including all images and business logos, posted on blogspot blogs by the dozens daily. Though it did not cost a dime to get those taken down, it wasted my time and a lot of it. If I was able to be reimbursed for my billable labor, Google would owe me six figures - as they indexed the stolen content and hosting it too.

If it is yours, it is worth the efforts to protect it... Not pretending to protect it. I had the same problem. But I don't pretend to be a Copyright Specialist... I hired one. I learned you can't do anything (in the USA) without registering copyright with Copyright.gov.

I would never file a DMCA Claim first. Register Copyright get your issuance number first then hire an attorney to sends a demand notice to settle, the labor fees you desire is found here including the cost of your attorney.

No one wins going to court, everyone loses but persuading a pirate to lose small over losing big is a language they understand.

[raseone]

What is this nonsense fantasy that fathom is weaving about people not protecting their copyrights? We are all well aware of how to register and defend copyrights and trademarks. Is he really trying to make the case that we should each have the resources to take on google in court or get them to settle? As someone whos actually tried i can assure you that is much easier said than done.... But maybe fathoms right maybe its our own fault for not suceeding where microsoft or the U.S. Goverment failed. Silly me. I should have just tried a little harder.

[fathom]

Not sure why you believe Google is the pirate!